The kid says that school is competitive, and that's bad--why can't they all agree to work less hard (presumably so they can have more time to play video games)? "Getting students to accept the reality that they might just not go to the best schools is good, I guess. But unless it also comes with the rallying call of engaging in a full-on socialist revolution, it doesn’t really deal with the whole issue."

This kid is the straw man conservatives present of socialism--the idea that the purpose of labor unions and socialism isn't to have a decent wage, but to not have to work hard.

There is a competition crisis, though. The problem is partly the idea that getting into an elite school is a measure of your intelligence--it isn't; they're explicit that that isn't the sole basis of admission, nor do they even have any measure of intelligence other than standardized test scores, so why not use the standardize test scores?

But it's also the allocation of social attention. Each field of study is too large now relative to the number of practitioners. Merit doesn't work anymore. There is no such thing as reputation anymore, except within a small circle of colleagues. Nobody trusts grades or recommendations. The problem isn't competition, but that we have no functioning reputation system anymore.